Consensual Massage

(Nik)

After sampling the Ramada's collection of breakfast pastries, Alisha arrived to take us out to the Banpo Culture Museum and the terra cotta warriors.

The Banpo were a civilization that lived near Xi'an about 6000 years ago and are claimed by the Han Chinese to be their ancestors. The Banpo developed a comparatively sophisticated society, developing a written system of symbols, creating jewelry out of bone and rock, and developing pottery as their keystone industry. The Banpo pots are earthen and nicely decorated with etched patterns and were used for collecting and storing food and water, however pottery was important enough that some pots were made as coffins for children.

As a warm up for the terra cotta army, we toured the enclosed Banpo archeological sites where these artifacts were excavated along with grave sites and house foundations. The sites showed the Banpo tradition of "second burial" where those who died honorably of unnatural causes would be buried once, left for a while, exhumed and buried again with their bones rearranged. 

Our second warm up for the Warriors was a visit to a kiln where terra cotta warrior replicas are fired. It was clearly a for-profit operation, as we had never been "sold at" so aggressively by any staff during my our three weeks here. The terra cotta was nice, but as we suspected the original and exclusive pieces could be purchased elsewhere for literally 70% less.

The Warriors themselves were impressive. The main pit is enclosed in a sort of airplane hanger with a perimeter walkway that allows you to view restored warrior statues, lines of collapsed warriors, and current excavations. The whole thing is really spectacular, especially when you consider that the project took 700,000 conscripts 37 years to finish, and it will undoubtedly take longer to recreate even with modern technology. Speaking of modern technology, the tomb has yielded bronze weapons with chromium plating. This concept, done to preserve sharpness and prevent breaking, was believed to have been known to ancient Chinese craftsmen, but lost after the Emperor who ordered the creation of the terra cotta warriors, Qin Shihuang, started burning texts unrelated to agriculture and medicine, only to be rediscovered by German weaponsmiths in the 1930s and Americans in the 1950s. The smallest pit is notable for being the headquarters of the whole army and for having terra cotta horses for pulling wooden chariots, which have decomposed. The other two exhibit halls included restoring the original paints on the Warriors and another pit with completed warriors around it in illuminated glass boxes.

Surely the most memorable part of the day was the foot massage. My feet were not exactly throbbing upon arriving at the massage parlor, however traipsing down a staircase terminating two stories underground (we were buried not unlike a terra cotta warrior, and soon we would be molded and kneaded as if we were clay) certainly made the prospect of some foot pampering more desirable. There was minimal desire to be had.

First, I was instructed to put on what was essentially a gold silk bathing suit and to relax on a maroon chair; Abby and Ola, in the same bathing suits, shuffled in, followed by our masseuses. These four troopers may or may not have spoken English, however we are convinced that they knew exactly what our various shrieks meant.

There were many shrieks. The massage began with a foot rub, however that progressed to a vigorous skeletal realignment which was as therapeutic as it was terrifying.
Some highlights:

• Having the knuckles of my toes extended and cracked.
• Having my patella smacked, punched, and tapped on like a drum.
• My neck being grabbed like a puppy's just before it is drowned in a bucket and yanked around.
• Ola saying "oh dear" several times, and being echoed by her masseuse. 
• Closing our eyes and hearing exasperated appeals to a deity in Mandarin from the masseuses.
• Having our calf muscles jiggled and slapped in unison. 
• Looking up to see our masseuses looking at each other and giggling as they punched our backs in unison.
• Having to look the masseuses in the eye after they had seen the state of our feet after three weeks of travel.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the whole thing was the way the four masseuses seemed to match the mood of the group; we giggled when they did funny stuff to our various limbs, they laughed with us about our exasperation and awkwardness. Despite failing to communicate with them verbally, I feel that we parted ways on good terms. We also made a pact to bring our host siblings with us to another massage in Hangzhou. We'll call it a "trust-building exercise."

Dinner consisted of thin moo shi-style pancakes, however the really memorable part dinner occurred after we left the restaurant. Alisha, as a native of Xi'an, knows the rhythm of crossing crowded streets, and is comfortable crossing against the light. Because she's looking out for five other humans, we tend to use crosswalks and to cross on green. When being safe and crossing properly tonight, we were nearly acquainted in a special kind of way with a Volkswagen driver who thinks that red lights don't apply to him, and nearly required us getting another sort of skeletal realignment. As Lindsay has said, drivers here tend to be very good, but just like at home, crazies are also frequently given licenses.